The three are charged with murder. But, Harrison County prosecutor Herman Cox said grand jurors might upgrade that to capital murder with an underlying charge of kidnapping.

Authorities said Robert Norbert Trosclair, 31, died April 10, several days after being kicked, punched, hog-tied, stabbed, strangled and hit on the head with a garden-hose reel and a tire and rim. The attack occurred in Pass Christian.

The Sun Herald reports that investigators found a photo of the critically wounded Trosclair on Stevie Ambrose’s cellphone.

Stevie Creon Ambrose

According to testimony this week during the three men’s preliminary hearing before Judge Albert Fountain, someone used the cellphone to make a video of the attack. The video was deleted before sheriff’s investigators obtained the cellphone, but a photo remained.

Authorities said the men assaulted Trosclair in front of others, including children, who were outside or looking out windows in two neighborhoods before Trosclair was left for dead.

An investigator testified during the preliminary hearing that Stevie Ambrose had accused Trosclair of stealing something from his car, but Ambrose hasn’t said what was taken, Cox said.

Authorities believe Trosclair, who lived with his mother, left home with Stevie Ambrose, who drove him away. A criminal complaint alleges the men kicked and punched Trosclair until witnesses confronted them, so the men put Trosclair in the back of a pickup truck and left. They reportedly went to a long dirt driveway near several homes. Court papers show witnesses said Stevie Ambrose hit Trosclair with a garden-hose reel and his brother used a tire rim.

Orlander P. Dedeaux

Investigators believe the men tied Trosclair up with a strap similar to those truck drivers use to secure a load, threw him back in the truck bed and drove to Cunningham Road, where they left him.

Trosclair was taken to a trauma center in Mobile, Ala., and was on life support before he died. Cox said the autopsy report showed Trosclair died of cumulative injuries.

“He had three stab wounds to his left lower back, multiple blunt-force trauma blows to his head and asphyxiation by strangulation, the choking possibly done with a belt recovered from one of the beating scenes,” Cox said.